Previews

Saint's Row

THQ's next-gen GTA clone might be set to take over the streets at launch.

Spiffy:

So much potential; great visuals; completely open-ended gameplay.

Iffy:

Some technical troubles; only just moved to final dev hardware; will it be too much of a clone for some?

At the time of writing, Rockstar and its multi-million dollar Grand Theft Auto franchise are not in bed with the Xbox 360. While the trusty old Xbox gets nice GTA ports months after the PlayStation 2, there's simply no knowing at this point whether or not Xbox 360 fans will ever get to taste the likes of Vice City and San Andreas on their brand-new machines.

THQ knows this. It knows that there is a potentially massive untapped audience of future 360 gamers that will simply be itching to get down and dirty with the thug life. To this end, Saint's Row was born. In fact, it's a good chunk of the way through its development cycle, and it's even said to be a real contender for one of the many coveted launch titles later this year for the 360.

I got the chance to hang with some of the 3rd Street Saint's gang members -- along with a couple of charming developers from Volition -- last night at a THQ gamers event where I got to see just how much the game has progressed from E3 earlier in the year. And it's all coming together rather nicely. Aside from technical stuff, like having just moved the code over to final Xbox 360 debug hardware, Saint's Row should end up being one pretty cool-looking game.

The plot sees you assume the role of a low-level gang member from the 3rd Street Saints mob. The broad vision of the game is to become a notorious and feared gang leader, taking over the streets of the city and ruling any way you see fit. This is accomplished by any number of different mechanics. Just like the GTA series, you approach thug life on-foot and via a multitude of slick vehicles.

Weapons, fists, feet, and guns -- and even the odd bazooka -- all factor heavily into the criminal carnage, as does a high level of world customization. As CJ in San Andreas could choose different clothes and physical attributes, so can the player in Saint's Row. In fact, Volition is taking this one step further and even allowing players to opt to have plastic surgery in order to keep them looking and feeling fresh, and maybe even staying one step ahead of the law.

Saint's Row's environments and models are very impressive. Although the demo I saw had some technical issues -- choppy framerate, no anti-aliasing, etc. -- there was more than enough there that looked great to lead me to believe that once the final layer of polish has been applied, this could well be one of the most impressive games visually hitting the 360.

The gameplay mechanics are pure GTA for the most part. You can take in missions to earn cash and reputation -- including myriad driving and running missions -- or you can simply take to the streets and do whatever the hell you want. THQ is pushing this level of open-ended gameplay stating that you'll never ever have to go beat a certain linear set of tasks in order to progress through the game to the end. The player is indeed in total control of his or her destiny.